Springs are used in a wide variety of applications, including control, closure, dampening and support, among others. They are also used in a wide variety of environments, many of which may be damaging to spring life. Problems may arise when a spring fails in the course of performing its function. This is particularly critical when the spring is used in a way in which its continued ability to perform its function is important to protect life or property against loss, injury or damage. For example, catastrophic consequences can occur if an automobile goes out of control as a result of the failure of a throttle return spring.
Thus, in critical applications (and, indeed, in any application), it may be extremely useful to monitor the life of the spring and to initiate a warning signal in the event of its failure. Moreover, it may also be useful to protect against such failures and to record and store the event of a failure in some form of memory. This would help protect life or property, and could also be used for maintenance or test purposes or otherwise to reconstruct the reason for a failure. Such a system would be particularly useful for a spring used in a hostile environment such as an engine compartment or vehicular suspension system, where spring life may be impacted adversely by one or more factors including extremes in usage, vibration, temperature, corrosion and the like, any one or more of which may occur throughout the period of its operation.
A need therefore exists for a device or system of devices that is capable of monitoring spring life, detecting and signalling spring failure and/or recording and storing the event of such failure in memory, and safeguarding against it.